Description

Named one of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Twentieth Century, Paramahansa Yogananda’s remarkable life story takes you on an unforgettable exploration of the world of saints and yogis, science and miracles, death and resurrection.

With soul-satisfying wisdom and endearing wit, he illuminates the deepest secrets of life and the universe — opening our hearts and minds to the joy, beauty, and unlimited spiritual potentials that exist in the lives of every human being.

This complete edition — available exclusively from Self-Realization Fellowship, the organization founded by the author — is the only one that incorporates all of his wishes for the final text including extensive material he added after the original 1946 edition and a final chapter on the closing years of his life.

About the author

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) is widely regarded as one of the preeminent spiritual figures of our time. Born in northern India, he came to the United States in 1920, where for more than thirty years he taught India’s ancient philosophy and science of yoga meditation and the art of balanced spiritual living. The first great master of Yoga to live and teach in the West for an extended period of time, he traveled and lectured extensively throughout North America and abroad, speaking to capacity audiences in major cities and revealing the underlying unity of the world’s great religions. He has inspired millions through his acclaimed life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, his groundbreaking commentaries on the scriptures of East and West, and his numerous other books. Paramahansa Yogananda’s spiritual and humanitarian work continues to be carried on today by Self-Realization Fellowship, the international society he founded in 1920 to disseminate his teachings worldwide.

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Editorial reviews

Hundreds of influential leaders in business, politics, and popular culture were introduced to Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi at the 2011 memorial service of Steve Jobs, by express wish of the late business visionary and founder of Apple Computer, who passed away on October 5, 2011. In a video interview posted online in September 2013, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff related this and other stories, to share what he saw as Mr. Jobs’ deep, though sometimes hidden, spirituality.

“Fabulous stories from his life keep the reader inspired, informed, and thoroughly entertained from beginning to end.”
— Yoga Journal

“This book is a must-read for the budding yogi, the spiritual veteran looking for a deeper understanding, and everyone in between...”
— Yogi Times

“I am grateful to you for granting me some insight into this fascinating world.”
— Thomas Mann, Nobel laureate

“You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the spiritual path whose life has not been influenced by this profound work of literature. I first read Autobiography of a Yogi in the 1970s during a vacation in the mountains of Guatemala. It awakened in me a desire to plumb my own spiritual depths and heights. It started me in a path of yoga, meditation, and self-exploration that has continued until this day. I am so grateful for all the wonderful gifts that have followed from these pursuits.”
— Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series

“In [Yogananda’s] celebrated Autobiography of a Yogi, he offers a stunning account of the ‘cosmic consciousness’ reached on the upper levels of yogic practice, and numerous interesting perspectives on human nature from the yogic and Vedantic points of view.”
— Robert S. Ellwood, Ph.D., Chairman, School of Religion, University of Southern California

“I met Paramahansa Yogananda on two occasions in the 1930s as a boy....Twenty years later someone gave me Autobiography of a Yogi, The moment I started reading that book, it did something to me that I can’t describe. I have read many books on yoga, by yogis; but I was never impressed as with this book. It has some magic in it.”
— Ravi Shankar, Indian classical musician

“One of the most charmingly simple and self-revealing of life-stories...a veritable treasure-house of learning. The great personalities one meets in these pages...return to memory as friends endowed with rich spiritual wisdom, and one of the greatest of these is the God-intoxicated author himself.”
— Dr. Anna von Helmholtz-Phelan, Professor of English, University of Minnesota

“As an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book has an importance both timely and timeless....His unusual life document is certainly one of the most revealing...of the spiritual wealth of India ever to be published in the West.”
— W. Y. Evans-Wentz, M.A., D.Litt., D.Sc., renowned scholar and author of The Tibetan Book of the Dead

“Autobiography of a Yogi, is regarded as an Upanishad of the new age....It has satisfied the spiritual thirst of hundreds of thousands of truth-seekers throughout the world. We in India have watched with wonder and fascination the phenomenal spread of the popularity of this book about India’s saints and philosophy. We have felt great satisfaction and pride that the immortal nectar of India’s Sanatana Dharma, the eternal laws of truth, has been stored in the golden chalice of Autobiography of a Yogi.”
— Dr. Ashutosh Das, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt., Professor, Calcutta University